Reducing Sauce: What Is It Good For and What Do You Have to Watch Out For?

Reducing a sauce is nothing more than boiling it down. Water evaporates and the volume of the sauce decreases. It becomes thicker and the flavor more intense because the flavors are concentrated in a small amount of liquid. To reduce a sauce, open pans with a large diameter are ideal. In it, the water can evaporate particularly effectively over a large surface.

Allow the sauce to simmer, stirring regularly, until the desired result is achieved. For example, it is common to reduce sauces to half their original volume in order to maintain a good texture and intense flavor. Before reducing, you should either not season at all or only very sparingly, as the taste in the reduced liquid becomes much more intense. Careful tasting after preserving is therefore particularly important.